


Feather

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: F/M, Post-Coital, eldritch guardians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22581451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Pre- or post-sex arm rubbing/tattoo tracing from North’s significant other.Come on, I can’t be the only one that gets really turned on by tattoos."If the OP ever comes back to the fill on the meme, I doubt it’ll make sense to them, because I’m putting this in the Dumb Eldritch Abomination Polyamorous Whatever-verseTooth was the last one to turn eldritch before North. So this takes place well before the last section of Avalanche (a Black Christmas fill if you want to search for it). North has a lot of reservations about all this, even though Tooth still tells him she loves him.
Relationships: Nicholas St. North/Toothiana
Kudos: 2
Collections: Christmas Cookie Short Fics





	Feather

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 10/3/2013.
> 
> This is my personal favorite North/Tooth fic that I wrote.

North lets his eyes drift closed as Toothiana curls closer to him, carefully tracing her fingers over the tattoos on his arms. It’s a relief to feel the press of those delicate fingertips making their way over familiar paths, to have this quiet, calm moment, to know that they’re creating a peaceful space for each other in the midst of the turmoil of the outside world and the strangeness encroaching in upon them from every side.  
  
He feels himself floating off when something about Tooth’s hand on his arm makes his eyes snap open again. It doesn’t feel like just her hand anymore—it feels like feathers, other fingers, and other smaller hands all brushing and stroking the lines of ink. He looks at Tooth’s hand, then at Tooth. Her hand looks the same as it always does, and her expression is calm.  
  
“This is how we make love,” she says, raising her eyes to North’s. She continues, her voice dreamy: “Just this way, more than the moments before, as we followed such foolish demands as our bodies made of us.”  
  
“Tooth…” North isn’t sure what to say. In some ways she’s right, but he’d hoped… “Are we not our bodies, at least in part?” He gently presses her closer to him for a moment, trying to gain some reassurance from the smooth warmth of her feathers. She is still physical. So gloriously physical. So wonderfully _present_.  
  
He feels her sigh against him. “You are. I’m not.”  
  
Understanding what she means, he doesn’t speak, feeling a lump forming in his throat.  
  
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” she says, resting her cheek against his chest. “I don’t know when it happened. But it was coming on for a long time, you must realize. The fairies—I’ve always been a network, North. Not as human as you. It’s probably why I didn’t notice the change until they were all there with me, welcoming me.”  
  
“How poor I must seem to you now,” North whispers. “Mere flesh daring to touch…”  
  
Tooth shakes her head and North feels the _no_ ripple through the room. “Flesh isn’t mere and you’re not mere flesh. I know the second now more than I ever did, and the first—if flesh was worthless, would I remember it in such detail?”  
  
“You were starting to forget, as you touched my arm.”  
  
“No,” Tooth says, _no no_ North feels in his head. “Your tattoos…they’re part of what makes you more than physical. I wanted to _touch_. I can’t explain it like this, air and tongue. If you’d let me, I could—”  
  
“Please, Tooth. Not now,” North says, knowing he couldn’t do anything to stop her if she wanted to.  
  
“All right.” Tooth pulls his arm towards her and lightly kisses the tattoos instead. “But I need you to believe, North. That I still love you. We all do, in all our different ways. They’re sort of jealous of me, actually.” He feels her smile against his skin. “We want you to join us. We know you could. And…it’s wonderful, North. It really is. You won’t lose anything.”  
  
North thinks of his Russian accent that never goes away, no matter what language he speaks, the calluses on his hands, the care he must take in trimming his beard, the pain he felt millennia ago as he was tattooed with nothing more than a single needle and ink made from burnt bones. “Yes, I would. I am not nearly ready, Tooth. You saw me, just now—I was surely nothing more than physical, thinking you were too.”  
  
They are both silent for a long moment.  
  
“You think we can’t be together like this anymore,” Tooth says, finally.  
  
“I can’t offer you what you should have. You can only offer me what I won’t take.”  
  
She looks up at him once more. “I want to stay here tonight, though.”  
  
“It’s arctic winter. Long time to dawn.”  
  
“I know.” She licks her lips. “And when I do go, will you let me kiss you as I am now? No pretensions?”  
  
North hesitates, then nods.  
  


* * *

  
  
In the faint light of the sun’s return to the pole, her kiss is every kiss they’ve ever shared—as she remembers them, as he remembers them. He knows she’s trying to make him ask her to stay, but in the sweetness of the memories he feels also their irrecoverability. They can’t create any new memories like the ones she’s showing him. She overwhelms him all too easily now, and he’ll never overwhelm her again.  
  
When she leaves (looking back with her eyes once, and more with her mind), North goes to a small reading room in the workshop. In a drawer in the desk there is a small glass case holding one of Tooth’s shed feathers. He checks the preservation spell and holds the box for a while, sitting in an armchair and staring out at the snow. If he opens the case, the feather will begin to age, and eventually crumble into dust. If he never opens the case, he’ll never touch one of Tooth’s feathers again.  
  
The corners of the box leave thin red lines on his palm long after he places it back in the drawer.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> bowlingforgerbils said: Beautiful and SAD. WEH.
> 
> whentheoceanmetsky said: IM REALLY SAD RIGHT NOW


End file.
